No major rise in LPG rates but auto operators increase fares

After buses and taxis, autos, too, have started revising fares. The hike is by Re1for the first stage and much higher for travelling subsequent distances. But, according to many, this revision of fare is not quite justified, given that the price of auto LPG—the fuel used for the vehicles—has not seen any significant rise, unlike that of petrol and diesel. In fact, the current auto LPG price is less than what it was at the beginning of the year, after an up-and-down graph.Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay | TNN | June 13, 2018, 07:21 IST

Kolkata: After buses and taxis, autos, too, have started revising fares. The hike is by Re1for the first stage and much higher for travelling subsequent distances. But, according to many, this revision of fare is not quite justified, given that the price of auto LPG—the fuel used for the vehicles—has not seen any significant rise, unlike that of petrol and diesel. In fact, the current auto LPG price is less than what it was at the beginning of the year, after an up-and-down graph.

On January 1, the auto LPG price was Rs 43.62 a litre. Since then, the rate kept dipping to Rs 39.55 a litre but on June 1, it again rose by Rs 2.35 to become Rs 41.9 per litre. “Encouraged by the bus fare hike, auto operators are citing this Rs 2.35 hike to raise their fares, completely disregarding the successive dips in between,” said Arunabha Ghosh Dastidar, a transport economist. “The revision of the fare is not justified.” He pointed out that auto fares were not decided by the government, but by the trade union affiliated to the ruling party. “As a result, the fare rises are arbitrary,” he said.

In fact, auto unions claimed they did not sanction the revision. “The auto union did not give a go-ahead for the fare rise. Auto operators are unilaterally raising the fares,” said Gopal Sutar, general secretary of South Kolkata Auto Operators’ Union, affiliated to the Trinamool trade union wing.

However, auto operators insisted that bus and auto fares had always been linked. If the bus ticket prices rose by Re 1, auto fare automatically increased by Re1, said Gour Naskar, who has already been charging passengers Rs 8 instead of Rs 7 for a trip between Ruby and Gariahat. Naskar refused to listen to the argument that the diesel price had increased by Rs 14 since the last fare revision in 2014. Auto LPG price has, however, remained within reach throughout. Auto operators may draw a parallel with bus ticket prices but the gap between the two modes widen for subsequent stages, when the auto rates increase. For instance, the fare for Taratala to Behala has gone up from Rs 6 to Rs 7 and that from Taratala to Thakurpukur from Rs12 to Rs 14. In the Esplanade-Park Circus route, the fare from Esplanade to Bata used to be Rs 6 a person. In January, the fare was revised to Rs 7, when LPG price rose to Rs 43.62 per litre. Now the operators want another hike of Re1.